Like a Love Story

by Abdi Nazemian

[nannah]

I feel so bad for rating this (super highly rated) book so low, but while the book covers a HUGE important part of lgbt history (a lot of it well researched, too), there were just so … so many things that rubbed me the wrong way while reading it. So many things were all over the place, and the characters … oh boy, those characters. I sort of liked only one of the main characters, and the other two I absolutely despised.

Content warnings:
LOTS of lgbt slurs (f slur, q slur, probably more)
as the book covers AIDS, there will be a lot about this topic, in depth
tons of homophobia
transphobia

Representation:
2 of the main characters are gay; one of them is also Iranian
the other main character is a plus-size woman

Like a Love Story takes place in the late 80s/early 90s in NYC, featuring Reza, a closeted gay Iranian immigrant who just moved to the US; Art, the only out and proud gay boy at school who’s also part of ACT UP; and Judy, a hopeful fashion designer and Art’s best friend (who also kind of fetishizes gay men and hates other women, but we’ll get to that later).

As these three meet, Judy and Reza start dating because Reza will do anything to convince himself he’s straight. But at the same time, Reza’s drawn inevitably towards Art, even though Art represents everything that terrifies Reza.

Okay, first of all, I’m going to cover the positives, because it’s really not a horrible book, and by far it’s not the worst one I’ve read this year.

At first glance, the story is beautiful. That cover! Beautiful. The topics covered and real life historical groups and their struggles. Beautiful, important, and great for young adults today to learn about and (as the book says at the end) Not To Forget! As the news and world today doesn’t really care about and kind of wants us to kind of sweep it under the rug. But it happened, and it’s still happening. We shouldn’t forget about these people, these activist groups, and the struggles our lgbt ancestors have gone through.

Unfortunately, the execution just didn’t match the idea. The “love triangle” of the three main characters dominated everything else. It was needlessly overdramatic (on Judy’s side) and felt unfair to Reza. The characters’ personalities, too, made it hard to enjoy the book. They were just … instantly unlikable, and never became more likable as the book progressed. While, yes, I understand some people are also not as likable as others, you need to be able to root for characters in a work of fiction. When Reza says “I hate that word [the f*g slur]”, and Art says, “Get over it. I’ve reclaimed it, and so should you,” how should we as the audience react? Like it’s funny? Like we should also have that asshole mindset?

Abdi Nazemian seems to do this a lot; kind of pushing his own opinions through the prose. Characters saying/doing wrong things is fine - as long as they’re corrected at some point during the book, or else it seems like it’s an opinion of the author (like his “get over it”, like gay people should all have reclaimed their slurs by now. Nazemian never really used “lgbt” he only used “q*eer” - even over “gay”, actually).

Art was an asshole in general, though. His pushing Rezi to have sex when Rezi wasn’t ready was really, really uncomfortable to read. Especially with the whole text shouting “gate to manhood”, “have you lost your virginity yet, however it works for you guys?”, etc., and Art going too far with Rezi telling him that he didn’t want to.

I wanted to love Judy, but she pretty much fetishized gay people and hated other women. She judged all women around her, “I didn’t know pretty women could be funny,” “I didn’t know you skinny women ate anything other than lettuce”, etc. Luckily, her opinions about other women changes, and she grows as a person in this respect, but she still fetishizes gay men: “Do you think gay people are just cooler than straight people?” “Art went to Italy and France with his parents, and he said that every man there seems gay. [...] I’d like to be in a place where all the men seem gay”, etc.

She’s also one of those allies who thinks they’re the best ally when in reality they’re just doing it for show because 1). They fetishize gay people, and 2). When Reza inevitably broke up with her (because he came out), she literally said “I hope you rot in hell”; basically what gay people are told by so many Christians, like, how is that fair? Even said in anger, it’s just not fair. Plus she was SO overdramatic and thought he betrayed her … when he really just realized he was truly gay and came out. She acted like he deceived him (typical homophobic reaction). And 3). “She [says] she’s allowed to make AIDS jokes ‘cause her uncle Stephen has AIDS and makes AIDS jokes all the time”. No. That’s not how that works.

There’s so much more I could say, but I don’t want to make this too long and be too negative. But I have to address the lack of attention to trans people, bi people, and wlw. As in, there was pretty much no mention of them. I know this is a book about AIDS and so it did and should pay the most attention to gay people, but besides the author’s note, there was literally NO mention of Marsha P. Johnson or Silvia Rivera or the trans women who were there with ACT UP in NYC in the early 90s. In fact, there was a lot of transphobia, with Art saying he wanted to have sex with “anyone with a Y chromosome”, and Stephen (a great character, actually; the best in the book!) saying “the good news is that when you’re gay, you can’t get pregnant. No babies,” etc. The book actually gave A LOT more respect to drag queens than it did trans people. I believe one line said something like ACT UP would fight with gay men, queens, and fierce feminists. Awkward that it leaves so many lgbt people out … as in everyone but gay men.

Bi people and wlw (women-loving-women) were nowhere to be found, either. The closest the text got to bi people was Judy mentioning the Kinsey scale (the Kinsey scale!! Really? Please don’t use this) to describe sexuality to Reza. But that’s definitely not a good way to describe bisexuality (aka “something in between”). Lesbians were mentioned in a spin-the-bottle game when “it was okay for girls to kiss girls, but not guys to kiss guys”. I didn’t like the insinuation that at this time it was okay to be a woman who liked women. Our struggles are and were different; it’s not okay to dismiss this (plus, it was okay for us to kiss because straight men fetishized us).

Anyway, the topic of the book, the message and story it attempted to achieve, was ambitious and beautiful, but ultimately the actual execution didn’t live up to that. I struggled through it, to be honest, but the ending and the author’s note did make me feel inspired. It’s obvious that this book is a work of love, so I’m very sorry that I didn’t like it more!